Shiny Purple Things

Money is a funny thing. Complicated.

I have to admit. I didn’t really buy that purse so that people would know my family had money. That would have been silly. Vuitton does not use pictures of my father’s old family estate as logos, now do they? I just started writing and got carried away with the concept. Made me laugh. And I do so appreciate your comments and compliments.

Still, my confession holds true in that I bought the purse in part so people would think I was a person with resources. That wasn’t an exaggeration. Above and beyond the sheer prettiness of objects I have a desire to signal that I am someone with resources, despite my tendency to wear my son’s old khakis and white Jockey t-shirt with flip flops.

Why? Why do that? Why on earth do I care? Shouldn’t anything I have achieved be enough? And if not, shouldn’t I focus my attention instead on a plan to achieve more? How about my innate value as a person, as an incarnation of the shocking beauty of life? Yes. Ideally, yes. But I also ask, am I harming anyone. I hope not. Were I to build an exclusive club, join it, wear its logo, bar others from joining, and walk the streets in search of someone to humiliate, that would be something else entirely. But this is just a sparkly, dark, purple/brown, purse.

You know, we are who we are. Oh, never, ever give up the endeavor to do better. That’s important. But at a certain point you do more damage through your distress over your feelings than through the feelings themselves. So. This is me. This is me and money. Might as well put it out there in case someone younger than I can benefit. Complicated. Lots of family and personal history. Possibly this is a useful fact. A woman with a shiny purple purse may have some doubts, somewhere, about something. The next time you are confronted with someone who has something shiny, even shiny people themselves, consider this. They probably have their doubts.

Everything I am saying is true. It may or may not matter.